Can we detect a homosexual from his accent?

wintereis   Tue May 06, 2008 4:26 am GMT
Damian, might I point out that I stated Imperialism. And though I didn't say it, I specifically meant the imperialism of existing European countries (the intention was since the beginning of colonialism and not all of Europe was part of an Empire throughout that time period). Before the United States even came into existence, approximately 2/3 of the Native American population had been decimated by the English and Spanish Empires and the vast majority of slaves had already been brought to the America's also by the English, Dutch, French, and Spanish. In the United States (many colonists wanted to abolish slavery with the Declaration of Independence but were prevented from doing so by the need of solidarity between the northern and southern states to defeat the British) The U.S. eradicated slavery 80 some years after they defeated the British military. The European powers held slaves for more than 200 years before that. When the U.S. came into being, it was left holding a terrible burden left over from English rule. It took a very bloody civil war to end slavery in the U.S. And since the French were partially responsible for slavery Greg, I wouldn’t hold yourselves too far above it if I were you.

I still don't know how you are managing to miss the point. Who ever said the U.S. was perfect, certainly not me. As I have iterated and reiterated, Europe has very little room to talk on this subject and are the ones who love to do it the most. And they will not hear of anyone ever defending it. So I give up. Damian and Greg, you are correct. The U.S. is worse than Iran, Libya, Sudan, China, Rwanda, North Korea and the Congo combined. Hilary Clinton makes Hitler look like a saint. Bush is on par with the Camire Rouge. Barack Obama is the reincarnation of Stalin. John McCain is Mussolini in disguise. . . Oh yeah, and Oprah gave torture lessons to the Inquisition. Hope I didn't miss anything. I'm sure you'll tell me if I did.

P.S. Damia, the phrase is, "as is my want", not "wont". And I can't stand a language that only pronounces half of its written form. That is why I chose to learn a dead language rather than French. But, as you can tell, I was certainly able to decipher the vast majority of it.
Wintereis   Tue May 06, 2008 6:32 am GMT
P.P.S. Damian, Since you seem to think that I should use the on-line translation service, where can I find it?
Guest   Tue May 06, 2008 6:58 am GMT
Wintereis   Tue May 06, 2008 7:28 am GMT
Either the translater isn't very good or Greg's French is abominable.

Greg: <<à commencer par leur propre monnaie qui part en charpie un peu plus chaque jour.>>

Translator: <<which starts lint in a little more each day.>>

Here is my favorite French quote. It is from Jean Genet's "Funeral Rights":

Les verge et les vergers émettent de ma bouche
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue May 06, 2008 8:28 am GMT
Och, Wintereis, our esteemed American pal, I wAnt to say that wOnt is perfectly correct in the sentence I used. Sorry, but it really is, at least in British English.

Def: WONT - accustomed to doing something, as in "he was wont to rise early". I know it sounds old fashioned and it isn't used all that much, but it really is still part of the English Language.

Oh - that translation service on-line. I will look it up and keep you posted.
guest   Tue May 06, 2008 2:13 pm GMT
One thing is for sure.
Frenchmen in large numbers are notoriously lecherous gays!
greg   Tue May 06, 2008 9:34 pm GMT
Wintereis : « I don't think you should be given over to talking too much about executions given the history of Fance. »

Ça commence mal : tu tentes d'esquiver les questions qui fâchent en changeant de sujet et en t'érigeant en arbitre.




Wintereis : « I was mearly pointing out that there has been less deaths caused by American Imperialism than European ».

Je crois que Damien t'a déjà répondu à ce sujet. Je complèterai sa réponse en précisant que les États-Unis ont déversé plus d'armes de destruction massives sur la planète en 60 ans que l'humanité entière en deux mille ans.




Wintereis : « And since the French were partially responsible for slavery Greg, I wouldn’t hold yourselves too far above it if I were you. »

Ouh ! je tremble... Les États-uniens ne seraient donc responsables de rien du tout, c'est bien ça ?! Le KKK c'est Maurice Chevalier, Édith Piaf ou Yves Montand qui l'ont exporté aux États-Unis ? Les loi racistes et le régime d'apartheid, ça vient aussi de l'Hexagone comme la baguette et le N° 5 de Chanel ? Sérieusement, en 1959 Gaston Monerville était président du Sénat alors que les Noirs des États-Unis n'avaient pas encore le droit de vote.
Guest   Tue May 06, 2008 11:12 pm GMT
<< Je complèterai sa réponse en précisant que les États-Unis ont déversé plus d'armes de destruction massives sur la planète en 60 ans que l'humanité entière en deux mille ans. >>

Y' ain't seen nothin' yet. Just wait 'till China gets going good in a couple of decades.
Damian in Edinburgh   Wed May 07, 2008 12:08 am GMT
Wintereis - try giving this site a bash if you fancy going international:

http://english.icrfast.com/lv/start/translator.htm
guest   Wed May 07, 2008 1:46 pm GMT
<<P.S. Damia, the phrase is, "as is my want", not "wont". >>
---
<<Def: WONT - accustomed to doing something, as in "he was wont to rise early". I know it sounds old fashioned and it isn't used all that much, but it really is still part of the English Language.>>

------

I use "wont" (accustomed to/used to) all the time. I am also American. Wintereis (are you American or German [Winter+Eis]???) what were you thinking???

Just make sure you're pronouncing it the right way: /w@nt/, with a short 'o' like in "won" and "wonder"; NOT a long 'o' like in "hope" (although I know many pronounce it this way, and it is found in many dictionaries now) or an open 'a' like in "want" ; )
Guest   Wed May 07, 2008 2:46 pm GMT
<<Just make sure you're pronouncing it the right way: /w@nt/, with a short 'o' like in "won" and "wonder"; NOT a long 'o' like in "hope" (although I know many pronounce it this way, and it is found in many dictionaries now) or an open 'a' like in "want" ; ) >>

Wont rhymes with "bunt", "hunt",
Native Korean   Thu May 15, 2008 4:18 am GMT
Anderson Cooper's sexual orientation is a matter of dispute.
I personally believe that Anderson Cooper is gay though.

http://www.nndb.com/people/482/000047341/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm6s5oLFyf4
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu May 15, 2008 7:59 am GMT
Get real! Many thousands of people have died in a cyclone in Burma. Many thousands more have died in an earthquake in China.

Surely the sexual orientation of this man is totally irrelevant and of no concern to anyone but himself. He is completely unknown over here in the UK, and in the greater scheme of things globally, the obsession western cultures (and in particular the American) have with self seeking celebrities and inconsequenial no-marks is bizarre to say the least.

Anyway, let's make this thread a little more in keeping with the main point of this Forum - where does this Cooper guy come from and is it possible to detect his home area from his accent - without making any reference to the effects of his sexuality on his speech patterns!

Flippin' 'eck!! How do you do an eye-rolling emoticon in here?
Guest   Thu May 15, 2008 9:11 am GMT
Anderson Cooper was born and raised in New York City, but from what I can tell, he has completely masked the traces of a typical NYC accent. I do not know how I would describe his current dialect, but sometimes he sounds vaguely Southern Californian, and at other times he sounds as if he might be using some kind of altered, toned down version of the Philadelphia dialect. He does not seem to have the full low-back merger, and if I recall, I once heard him pronounce the word horrible with /ɑ/. Therefore, you might say that his vowel in horrible is a clue to his NYC origins, but it reminds me more of Philadelphia as opposed to New York City. If I had never heard of Anderson Cooper and met him as a stranger on the streets, I would never once guess that he hailed from New York City based on his speech patterns.
Guest   Thu May 15, 2008 10:02 am GMT
'<<If I had never heard of Anderson Cooper and met him as a stranger on the streets, I would never once guess that he hailed from New York City based on his speech patterns.>>

But I would guess that he was gay and I would ask him out!